Appeals Court Rejects ISP Stay of Neutrality Rules

An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules will go into effect Friday after a court decided not to block them. The ruling is an early win for the FCC, whose assertion of enforcement authority over ISP's is being challenged in court by cable and wireless industry groups. Techdirt reports: "According to the court order (pdf), broadband providers failed to provide 'the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,' meaning that the FCC's new net neutrality rules will remain in place for the duration of the ISPs assault on the FCC. While the courts have promised to expedite it, a resolution to the case could still take more than a year. FCC boss Tom Wheeler was quick to take to the FCC website to applaud the ruling."

Comments

Sometimes the good guys win

[Anonymous Coward]

The first of many wins hopefully

Re:Sometimes the good guys win

[x0ra]

We'll see, said the zen master.

My Usenet has always been throttled

[Trax3001BBS]

Wonder how that's going to work out tomorrow.

Re:My Usenet has always been throttled

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't happy about this myself when the ISPs started doing it, but my guess is that it'd be a problem if they were throttling or blocking your access to Usenet with any other provider, but not the one they're bundling with your service.

Wonder if they can continue to block outbound SMTP though. Ironically, my ISP locking me to their SMTP as a spam prevention tactic means I can't reach people from time to time because Spamcop has been RBLing my ISP's SMTP.

Re:My Usenet has always been throttled

[Trax3001BBS]

I wasn't happy about this myself when the ISPs started doing it, but my guess is that it'd be a problem if they were throttling or blocking your access to Usenet with any other provider, but not the one they're bundling with your service.

Shoot the headers don't even show what server sent it anymore "Path: not-for-mail" is as good as it gets.

My Usenet comes from my provider as a free service, but they do pull from another service with a retention of 5-10 years for the text groups, southwind.net seems a familiar name to of shown up in the headers.

Since it can't be throttled anymore I'll most likely lose it, my ISP did post a few years ago it was being dropped, yet it's still available.

Wonder if they can continue to block outbound SMTP though. Ironically, my ISP locking me to their SMTP as a spam prevention tactic means I can't reach people from time to time because Spamcop has been RBLing my ISP's SMTP.

A problem I've never had, I POP3 in, and SMTP out, and my ISP only has email accounts I use on mobile devices (expendable).

Re:My Usenet has always been throttled

[Holi]

What ISP still provides USENET access?

Re:My Usenet has always been throttled

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

These are old university professors emeritus. They'll be dead soon.

Re:My Usenet has always been throttled

[Trax3001BBS]

What ISP still provides USENET access?

Charter.com :) ya, I was fairly surprised myself. nntp.charter.net

I'm sure there are just a handful of us using it as it's becoming the great unknown; also why years ago they gave a date which has long since past that the Usenet would be shutdown yet still accessible.

Thought I'd check, I don't have numbers just the size of the file and the speed a bar goes from 0 to 100 for it's download (Forte Agent) and it does seem to be faster, but that could be due to a number of reasons. The important thing though is it's still accessible.

Good and Bad

[TechyImmigrant]

Net neutrality is good. It is good that big ISPs are subject to it.

However a world in which ISPs are placed within the legal framework of phone companies is bad.

A well written net neutrality law would have been better than the FCC bringing ISPs under their wing.

Re:Good and Bad

[Bartles]

Correct. You don't need thousands of pages of regulations to ban throttling.

Re: Good and Bad

[t1oracle]

Most of those pages are comments and supporting information, not regulations.

Re:Good and Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands of pages? Have you skimmed it? http://transition.fcc.gov/Dail...

Re:Good and Bad

[Trax3001BBS]

Thousands of pages? Have you skimmed it? http://transition.fcc.gov/Dail...

"A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such person is so engaged, shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content, application, or service, or use of a non-harmful device, subject to reasonable network management."

Subject to reasonable network management - Not that that will ever be an abused argument.

Re:Good and Bad

[timrod]

While I agree that a law is necessary to cement net neutrality in place, I think that it's actually better that the regulation started at the FCC level. The massive list of comments in favor of net neutrality is a warning to any member of Congress who would dare stand against net neutrality when the time to make legislation comes: if you stand against net neutrality, there are thousands of people who are going to do anything in their power to ensure you do not get re-elected, and no amount of corporate money is going to save you.

At the same time, I think that the FCC regulations will create a strong track record that shows net neutrality works and won't kill the big ISPs, thus removing that as a valid argument when the push for legislation arrives. When people see that net neutrality works (and makes their internet service better), it will be very difficult for the ISPs to make a case against no matter how much money they offer to donate. At the same time, the people in favor of neutrality can say, "The internet is a better place now that neutrality rules exist, and allowing the regulations to expand beyond Title II will only make things better."

Re:Good and Bad

[riverat1]

I think that it's actually better that the regulation started at the FCC level. The massive list of comments in favor of net neutrality is a warning to any member of Congress who would dare stand against net neutrality when the time to make legislation comes: if you stand against net neutrality, there are thousands of people who are going to do anything in their power to ensure you do not get re-elected, and no amount of corporate money is going to save you.

That hasn't stopped the Republicans from introducing several bills to undo the rules.

Re:Good and Bad

[SpankiMonki]

A well written net neutrality law would have been better than the FCC bringing ISPs under their wing.

Yeah, that's one thing the US Congress excels at - enacting well written laws.

Re:Good and Bad

[Ryanrule]

isp's were ALREADY under the domain of the fcc. dont deflect, obvious repub.

Re:Good and Bad

[Bartles]

After the regulatory language is actually written, it will be thousands of pages.

Re:Good and Bad

[BradMajors]

Net neutrality is not necessarily good. Net neutrality is now required because the FCC allowed excessive internet consolidation. With sufficient competition we would be better off without more FCC laws about what can and can't be done on the internet.

Re:Good and Bad

[diamondmagic]

excessive internet consolidation

Which events specifically?

How does the FCC's rules stop this?

What were ISPs doing before the FCC that they're not doing now?

I know it's all popular to hate on the ISPs, but that doesn't mean we go to the government to pile on MORE layers of nastiness. I mean, the FCC can't identify any prior particular application of their own rules! The tl;dr summary of their findings is "A bunch of people came to us and expressed their concerns that sometime in the future, an ISP might start doing something nasty, so we're giving ourselves power over the Internet."

Re:Good and Bad

[Fire_Wraith]

For one, the language is already written. And no, the actual regulatory part of the order is amazingly short and concise. The only reason it's so long is because it's padded out with all the comments, including complaints and dissents from the two Republican commissioners that have no real bearing on the actual implementation of the rule as it now stands.

Re:Good and Bad

[Jason Levine]

Yeah, that's one thing the US Congress excels at - enacting well written laws.

Hey, Congress can enact well written laws. It just so happens that the industry that the laws benefit might be the folks who wrote the well written laws. Also "well written" doesn't neccessarily mean "protects consumers." In these cases, the laws are written well to protect the industry in their quest to get as much money and power as possible.

Re:Good and Bad

[swell]

It seems like a win for the good guys.

It also looks like a power play. Now the FCC has established their turf, they are in a great bargaining position to extort favors from the telecom industry. Soon we will see the revolving door syndrome where executives of the regulator and of the regulated are playing musical chairs. One hand washes the other.

This has been the pattern of every regulatory agency on earth. Everyone on the inside wins, everyone in the real world loses.

Re:Good and Bad

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Well, the Internet is a thing you join into. It isn't a land grab so you can start extorting premiums.

Re:Good and Bad

[dywolf]

to be fair, nothing really stops them, unless it's named Adelson, Koch, or some such.

Re:Good and Bad

[dywolf]

Crikey.
It's the shill in his natural habitat.
This particular specimen is drawn to net neutrality threats like an ignorant moth to a flame.
Note how he repeats the same myths even though he's been corrected several dozen times before.
Biologists are yet unsure whether this means his species is completely unable or willing to learn, or just that dedicated to his job.

Re:Good and Bad

[Coren22]

Examples of abuses this is to prevent in the future?

First, Comcast throttles Netflix as it competes with their own services, Netflix then is forced into paying Comcast for a connection (rather than their hosted proxies that worked for years):
http://qz.com/256586/the-insid...

Then Verizon decides to hop on the bandwagon, Netflix is forced into buying a connection from Verizon too, then Verizon is still throttling them:
http://www.extremetech.com/com...

Netflix pays for internet access already (through L3 I believe)
I requested them to send me traffic, and I am on Verizon.
Verizon has NO right to throttle traffic that I as a customer of theirs has requested.
The throttling was so bad, I wasn't even able to play 320P video over my 75Mbit symmetric connection.
They did the same thing to Youtube, constant buffering breaks in videos.

This is not what the internet is supposed to be, I pay for a huge pipe, I should not be punished for trying to use 1/10 of it to watch a video.

Re:Good and Bad

[oh_my_080980980]

First off you said the regulations were thousands of pages, then, once corrected, you back tacked and said once written - ignoring the fact the rules have already been written. So you can fuck off now.

Re:Good and Bad

[DarkOx]

if you stand against net neutrality, there are thousands of people who are going to do anything in their power to ensure you do not get re-elected, and no amount of corporate money is going to save you.

Umm, no that isn't how it works at least not on an issue like this. First the vast majority of those comments will pay no attention whosoever to how you voted. Of the tiny fraction that do pay attention they have other issues that the vote on. They likely will have only one other real choice, and the candidate who 'might' side with them on net neutrality but has never been in a position to really vote on it more than like has some other deal breaker for them. So they will stick with candidate A regardless of their disagreement about this issue.

Congress can fuck this up and if the big ISPs and wireless carries donate enough to their campaigns they will. Don't kid yourself no matter how much support might exist for this it won't be the issue that costs any politician their seat. Unless you can get a Google or somebody like that to help you make noise like SOPA and PIPPA. Don't count on that though. Those actions provoked enough outrage and thinly veiled threats from the political class that Google et al. are not likely to try such shenanigans again. They'd be out trying to stop TPP fast track if they were not running scared.

Re:Good and Bad

[jwdb]

This has been the pattern of every regulatory agency on earth. Everyone on the inside wins, everyone in the real world loses.

I don't understand you, nor the huge number of people who share this opinion, so help me: why do you see the world in black and white?

Do you honestly believe that regulation has never benefited society? The labor standards introduced after the great depression, the anti-monopoly laws after the 1800s, the consumer protection laws spread throughout, the FDA after who-knows what (cfr. poison milk in China a few years ago), the list goes on.

Yes, regulatory agencies are prone to capture, inefficient, bureaucratic, and a general pain in the ass. Don't ignore the good they do, however.

Re:Good and Bad

[Bartles]

Do you realize how contradictory you sound?

Re:Good and Bad

[Bartles]

No it's not. This is the first time this has been done. There will be tons of actual rules to draft.

Re:Good and Bad

[TechyImmigrant]

>isp's were ALREADY under the domain of the fcc.
A very different domain of the FCC.

> obvious repub
Wut? Your brain appears to be broken.

Re:Good and Bad

[diamondmagic]

Examples of abuses this is to prevent in the future?

First, Comcast throttles Netflix as it competes with their own services, Netflix then is forced into paying Comcast for a connection (rather than their hosted proxies that worked for years):
http://qz.com/256586/the-insid...

The FCC specifically declined to intervene in this. From their published rationale:

As discussed, Internet traffic exchange agreements have historically been and will continue to be commercially negotiated. We do not believe that it is appropriate or necessary to subject arrangements for Internet traffic exchange (which are subsumed within broadband Internet access service) to the rules we adopt today.

Different example please?

Then Verizon decides to hop on the bandwagon, Netflix is forced into buying a connection from Verizon too, then Verizon is still throttling them:
http://www.extremetech.com/com...

I buy a 100Mbps connection from a local data center. Explain to me how that's different than "throttling."

If they're really getting less than their contract provides for, couldn't they just use the courts?

Why do you need the FCC?

Netflix pays for internet access already (through L3 I believe)
I requested them to send me traffic, and I am on Verizon.
Verizon has NO right to throttle traffic that I as a customer of theirs has requested.
The throttling was so bad, I wasn't even able to play 320P video over my 75Mbit symmetric connection.
They did the same thing to Youtube, constant buffering breaks in videos.

This is not what the internet is supposed to be, I pay for a huge pipe, I should not be punished for trying to use 1/10 of it to watch a video.

What evidence do you have that Netflix video content is uniquely being throttled? That if I were to host my video website on L3, it wouldn't have the same connection issues?

Keep in mind Netflix is a majority of Internet traffics, so symmetric pipes are necessarily impossible.

If the FCC was really going to help, isn't that a failure of the premise of Title II regulations in the first place?

Re:Good and Bad

[diamondmagic]

Crikey.
It's the shill in his natural habitat.
This particular specimen is drawn to government authority like an ignorant moth to a flame.
Note how he repeats the same myths even though he's been corrected several dozen times before.
Biologists are yet unsure whether this means his species is completely unable or willing to learn, or just that dedicated to his job.

See, I can do that too, and funny thing is, regardless of who uses this rhetorical device, it doesn't really answer the fundamental question much. Why can't the FCC do it's damn job?

Re:Good and Bad

[dywolf]

ya...doesnt work that way.
truth hurts bitch.
this is the FCC doing its job: regulating communication in the public interest.

you have never posted a true word on net neutrality.
you have been shown countless examples of times it would have prevented bad behavior.
yet you continue to maintain that its both not needed, and that there are no examples.
you are a liar, and shill.

Re:Good and Bad

[diamondmagic]

What words are you talking about? I quoted directly from the FCC's rationale, and asked three questions and you answered zero of them.

And no, the FCC's only proper job is to allocate radio spectrum. Manipulation or regulation of speech is prohibited by the First Amendment.

Re:Good and Bad

[Coren22]

In the Verizon article, they specifically state that when a VPN is active, they get 10x the throughput to Netflix. How is that not proving that VZ was intentionally throttling the connection to unusable levels?

Re:Good and Bad

[diamondmagic]

It's still hard to tell what's going on here because both parties only seem interested in depicting the other as evil.

Level3 blames Verizon. There's some nasty stuff going on there if what they say is true. But none of it uniquely affects Netflix, it affects all Level3 customers. This is the kind of network management that the FCC has declined to intervene in.

They claimed that Verizon literally unplugged half the connections between two networks that are only half congested.

Presumably, if they added more links, the connection to that Netflix server (among other Level3 customers) would go up, but it couldn't do any better than double. (Bitrates might more than double now that there's no packet retransmissions, but it probably wouldn't increase an order of magnitude, which is what the VPN user claims.)

If a VPN really is faster, then Netflix clearly has access to unused capacity via other routes that they're not providing to customers. That is, the VPN is just doing the routing that Netflix isn't doing.

Either that, or the VPN customer is accessing the same Netflix server, which would make the VPN story is a lie, because VPN, of course, doesn't let you blast through network congestion.

Regardless, none of the accusations claim Net Neutrality violations.

Re:Good and Bad

[Coren22]

If a VPN really is faster, then Netflix clearly has access to unused capacity via other routes that they're not providing to customers. That is, the VPN is just doing the routing that Netflix isn't doing.

Netflix owns/runs 0 networks, so they don't set routes. L3 and VZ set routes. The VPN only bypasses routes set by VZ, and any traffic inspection/interference that VA has setup, as they can't inspect packets inside of a VPN. Packet Inspection is now essentially not allowed according to the FCC, as well as intentionally degrading connections to specific providers (Hulu has no issues on Verizon's network, nor does Verizon's own services, and HBO's streaming service.). Verizon is intentionally degrading a specific provider of a service over other providers of the same class of service.

Re:Good and Bad

[diamondmagic]

Right. The point is Netflix has plenty of servers, and there's at least one location for them that's providing better service than L3 is, at least to just one customer. But right, this is L3's problem.

In any event, again, this is basic network (mis-)management issue, not a Net Neutrality issue.

Make the last mile a public utility

[riverat1]

If you make the last mile a public utility open to any content provider then you don't need to regulate them and I'm free to select my ISP from anyone who cares to compete for my business.

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[Anonymous Coward]

Lame joke. Oh wait...were you being serious?

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[Anonymous Coward]

i just tried to do some research, and the numbers i got were $600 per home at the low end in dense areas and
up to $20,000 per home in rural areas.

i have no idea how much these numbers are padded or shrunk to fit various agendas, or whether they include
obvious inefficiencies.

but lets just pretend those are good estimates. as much as i agree with you politically, that kind of cost is clearly
out of range for most local governments in US, we like to keep them pretty cash poor

otoh, google claims that the US can be wired with fiber for $500B (which is kinda ballparkish with the numbers above).

at a national level, does that seem like a worthwhile expenditure for each of us not be beholden to a single unregulated corporate entity for
access to infrastructure at least as crucial as the phone system?

hells yeah

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[marka63]

Why does it have to be local government?

In Australia the federal government is in the process of providing the infrastructure.

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Works well in quite a few first-world countries. I thought you lived in one. Are you, as a country, incapable of making such a thing happen? Then maybe you are not actually living in a first-world country after all?

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[Anonymous Coward]

*Sigh*

How many times do we have to go over this?

"First world" means the US and its allies. Full stop. The US cannot be anything but first world, ever. If the US goes to hell in a handbasket, it's still first world.
"Second world" means the USSR and its allies. The USSR no longer exists, and any re-formed USSR won't be the same USSR, so nothing can be second world ever again.
"Third world" is everybody else, regardless of the economy, freedoms, or other conditions within the nation. It has nothing to do with being rich or poor, civilized or uncivilized, or anything else.

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be state government, but (if they allow themselves to be constrained by it) I don't think the Constitution allows the federal government to do this.

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[Anonymous Coward]

If you make the last mile a public utility open to any content provider then you don't need to regulate them and I'm free to select my ISP from anyone who cares to compete for my business.

This is all well and good in theory but to take away ownership of physical cabling and turn it over to a public entity will never happen. Companies are spending millions of dollars running fiber, they are not going to give up their exclusive rights so easily.

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not need their permission to take it. This falls well under eminent domain laws. The government would just have to compensate them for the property. Completely legal and constitutional. The government does this with private roads and other infrastructure fairly often

Re:Make the last mile a public utility

[radarskiy]

Making the last mile a public utility *is* regulation. It is not helpful to treat "regulation like a dirty word, especially if you are trying to implement regulation.

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